The Lame shall enter First

This story was very sad just like the other O'Connor story we have read. In both stories we have read, the author ends them with saddness and guilt. In comparison to "Everything must Converge" when the mother dies and Julien, the son, is left to feeling some guilt for his whole life for what he said before she dies relates to "The Lame Shall enter First" because the father spent so much time on another boy when he failed to realize his own son needed him. When he finally realizes he needs to tell his own boy, Norton, how much he means to him he finds him dead.
I can't say I like this story because the ending was kind of morbid and nobody came out happy. But like the first story we read of O'Connors, we learn a lesson. You dont know what you have till its gone and it teaches you to not take things for granted. Life is too short. And sure the father was trying to help another boy butyou have to make sure your okay and the people around you are as well before you can go on helping others.

Everything that Rises must Converge

I kind of had a feeling what was going to happen at the end of this short sotry before reading it. I think that it is really sad how the boy treated his mother throught out the whole book. I understand that she was from a different generation creating tension between blacks and whites. This causes the son to get very irritated because his generation is starting to accept blacks as people and not slaves. Its heart breaking to hear the mother say things about blacks. I thought it was un called for when she reached in her purse to give the boy a penny. It is kind of a like a slap in the face, although its how she grew up. I feel like by her giving the boy a penny gave her a sense of her still having power over blacks. Its almost like she felt like they would need that penny and she was doing them a favor. But the black mother took it as an insult.
In the end, the mother starts stomping down the street and you hear her talk of getting his grandfather to come pick her up. This already hints that she is towards the end of her time. The son is going to live with a ton of guilt because he was yelling at her "I told you not to do that and you got what you deserved". That is an awful way to say goodbye.

A Pair of Tickets

Going into this story, I was unsure of how it was going to be. It starts off with a really strong introduction that gets right to the point. It talks of a train leaving for Hong Kong so we know the narrator is going on a trip. However, I was trying to paint a picture in my head but the story fails to mention in the beginning whether its a boy or girl as the narrator. I assumed that it was a girl because of the way the author portrayed the realtionship between the narrator and the mother.
I really liked this story because it tells a story of how a girl finds out where she is really from and what it means to feel that she is chinese. Also, I liked how the author ended the story with " Together we look like out mother. Her same etes, her same mouth, open in surprise to see, at last, her long cherished wish" which was for her daughters to meet and for her one daughter to know what it feels like to be chinese. I also liked how the author made the narrator and her father have a closer relationship. Overall, I enjoyed reading this story.